This invention relates generally to the field of food packing and more specifically to apparatus and processes for cooking and packing pieces of fruit and vegetables, whether whole, halves, slices, or chunks that are packed into containers with a covering liquid, such as juice, water, syrup, or the like. It is particularly directed to such method and apparatus for cooking and packing discrete batches of such food products.
Numerous types of apparatus have been developed for cooking food products, such as pieces of vegetables and fruits. Such apparatus has included continuous process cookers and certain types of batch cookers. In the continuous process apparatus the uncooked food products are fed into one end of the cooker, which typically is of the form of a conveyor, such as screw conveyor, that carries the food product along a predetermined path while contacting it with heated liquid and then discharges the product at the end of the path, where it is then received into a storage container for storing until it is to be packed into a shipping container. In various batch cooking units a predetermined quantity of the food product is placed into a container, such as a cooking retort, with heat being applied either by steam or by the introduction of heated liquid. Upon completion of the cooking process the food product is then removed from the cooking retort and held in a storage or dispensing container for subsequent transfer into a shipping container.
While various of these prior art cooking units have functioned with greater or lesser degrees of satisfaction, many, by their very nature, have subjected the food products to handling procedures that may result either in bruising or other damage to the food product pieces or possible contamination prior to packing in the shipping containers. This is particularly true in equipment incorporating aseptic packing in which the food product is packed at a temperature substantially below the sterilizing and cooking temperature. For such apparatus it is necessary to maintain completely aseptic conditions around the food product from the time it is cooled until it is sealed within the shipping container.